Immigration--News, Law, and Policy

With all the news and views on the hot topic of immigration reform, where do you find reliable background information and a range of perspectives? There’s no better place to start than JURIST. The legal news and research site is highlighting this topic with a one-page collection of key resources. Receive up-to-the minute news feeds and link to recent Congressional documents, court decisions, and diverse think tank, government agency, and advocacy web sites with reports, studies, surveys and statistics. And if you want to know what immigration law professors are talking about and posting these days, check out their blog, ImmigrationProf.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Blogs to Blawgs

You already know about your favorite Library blog - [modesty has never been one of my faults ;) ]. Here are a few of the many ways to find blogs on legal topics of interest- [sometimes referred to as "blawgs" - those clever lawyers have a way with words].

Blawg - a subject directory of legal blogs
Yahoo Directory of Law Weblogs
A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs - a posting from a fellow law student's blog - 3L Epiphany
Blog Search (from our friends at Google)

Happy Blogging!

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

National Park Service Web Site

Such beautiful weather as we have had during the past couple of days brings to mind vacations and the outdoors. It is never too early to plan. So, for those who may be interested in visiting one of this nation's beautiful national parks, the National Park Service Web site is a very useful resource. The "Parks and Recreation" link allows users to search for a park alphabetically, geographically, or by topic. The site also contains interesting links to pages dealing with the history, natural wonders, and preservation of these national treasures.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Yesterday - Where in the World?

Maybe you noticed there was no post here on the blog yesterday. And were wondering why. Well, I was trying to catch the first solar eclipse of 2006. Alas, couldn't quite get "down there" in time. Down in this case being Brazil, where the eclipse started before heading generally northeast all the way to Mongolia. You can read all about it at NASA's page specifically for this eclipse. From there, you can also find out about upcoming eclipses.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

21st Century Library for Litigators

Are you interested in being a litigator? Have a summer job in a litigation firm? Just curious? Then this Thursday's 21st Century Library workshop is for you!

Thursday: March 30th: 1:10-2:00 Litigation Resources via Lexis & Westlaw
Lexis and Westlaw offer vast resources for all phases of litigation. Learn what these services have to offer, and how to efficiently make use of them. Topics will include accessing briefs, injury valuation, jury instructions, locating and evaluating expert witnesses, obtaining information regarding opposing counsel, locating forms and checklists. Attendance is guaranteed to save you time in the future!

All workshops are held in the lower level computer lab. All law students are welcome.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

U.S. Government RSS Library

An RSS feed is a summary of the latest news or information posted on a website that is sent to a subscriber through a news reader such as bloglines. The U.S. Government now offers, through their FirstGov portal, RSS feeds on a variety of topics. You can sign up to receive feeds on topics such as Education, Health, Science, Defense, Business and more. The Government offers RSS feed subscriptions to Podcasts (audio broadcasts) also.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Compare & Contrast

CenSEARCHip, a very cool tool from the Indiana University School of Informatics allows you to compare the results returned by different countries' versions of the major search engines. It presently works with the web search and image search functions of four national versions of Google and Yahoo!- the United States, China, France, and Germany. Note that you don't get the actual results page, just a list of the terms appearing on the pages of the top results. (details here)

I found use of the image search to be simpler and more informative. For example, try searching Tiananmen on the image search for Google China and US. Hmmmm....




Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat